Arvo Pärt, classical music composer

Arvo Pärt

Biography

Arvo Pärt was born in Paide, Järva County, Estonia on
September 11, 1935. His first instruction in music was at the age of seven, yet
he did not begin to seriously study music until 1954 at the Tallinn Music
Middle School. However, his studies were soon interrupted when he temporarily
left the school to fulfill military service, playing oboe and percussion in the
army band. He returned to music in 1957, enrolling at the Tallinn Conservatory
where he studied composition with Heino Eller. During this time, and after his
graduation in 1963, he worked as a recording engineer for Estonian Radio. His
early compositions during this time where mainly for film and the stage.

Though Estonia was still an independent Baltic state at the
time of Pärt's birth, it was taken over by the Soviet Union in 1940, and
remained under the control of Moscow (with the exception of three years of Nazi
occupation during the war) until the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Pärt
drew the ire of the Soviet establishment with his 1960 composition, Nekrolog, which utilized Schoenberg's
twelve-tone system. However, less than a year later, he won First Prize in a
competition of 1,200 works. Some years later, Pärt was once again at odds with
Soviet officials when he sought to emigrate with his family. In 1980, his
request was granted, and Pärt and his family moved first to Vienna where he
became an Austrian citizen. The following year, he moved to Berlin. Pärt
returned to his native Estonia around the turn of the 21st century.

Pärt's early music showed the influence of fellow Soviet
composers, Shostakovich and Prokofiev, as well as the Hungarian composer Béla
Bartók. He also experimented with Schoenberg's twelve-tone system, but
inevitably abandoned it when it was criticized by Soviet officials. After his
early works were banned, Pärt entered a period of a silence, and delved into a
contemplative study of choral music from the 14th to 16th
centuries. When Pärt returned to composition, his music was radically
different. Inspired by his study of plainsong, Gregorian chant,
and the polyphony of the Renaissance, Pärt began composing in a unique
minimalist style he called "tintinnabuli," from the Latin tintinnabulum meaning "a bell."
Works from this period include Fratres, Tabula Rasa, Spiegel im Spiegel,
and the large-scale choral compositions, St. John Passion and Te
Deum.

Pärt continues to compose today and is prominent composer in modern
classical music. His Symphony No. 4 was premiered at the Walt Disney
Concert Hall in Los Angeles on January 10, 2009, and was his first symphony
composed since 1971. In 2011, he appointed a member of the Pontifical Council
for Culture by Pope Benedict XVI, and his piece, Adam's Lament, won a
Grammy for Best Choral Performance in 2014.